


Scabs, Scorpions, and Sequoias

by TiesThatBind1899



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Bonding, Ellie Swears A Lot, Father-Daughter Relationship, Found Family, Gen, Joel sighs a lot, Travel, typical stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26203015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiesThatBind1899/pseuds/TiesThatBind1899
Summary: On their way to The University of Eastern Colorado, Ellie and Joel discuss if scorpions are edible.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 130





	Scabs, Scorpions, and Sequoias

**Author's Note:**

> Set just a short time after the Tommy's Dam chapter in TLOU.

They’re somewhere in Colorado now. Or so Joel says. Ellie can only take his word for it. To her, it still looks just like Wyoming - mountains, woods, and a sky that seems very close. It’s beautiful and a little scary, and they haven’t passed through a town in days. It feels like they’re in a new world. Far from anything Ellie’s ever known. They haven’t even run into any infected or hunters or anything, and the quiet should be relaxing. But it’s starting to make her nervous.

So she coaxes Joel into one of her favorite games. He plays along, and she thinks he might feel a little guilty, over what he said to her in that house near Tommy’s. They haven’t talked about that. And knowing Joel, they probably never will.

This is the next best thing, though.

“Okay, okay,” she says from her perch behind him, atop Callus. They’ve been walking through a forest, which is slow but safer than taking a road. “Would you rather... eat a scorpion or eat a turd?”

Joel sighs. It’s a variation on the sighs he’s been giving her for the past hour, only with each question, the sigh is getting longer and more exhausted. But still, he says, “Whose turd is it?”

Ellie wrinkles her nose. Laughs. “It matters?”

“It matters,” he replies. “Is it my own turd?”

She laughs harder. He’s kinda funny, usually without meaning to be. “It’s a… dog turd, okay? So answer the question.”

It doesn’t take him long to think things over. He says, “The scorpion.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Why? You’re tellin’ me you’d rather eat literal shit than a bug?”

Ellie purses her lips. “Okay, fair.”

They go quiet for another stretch. Ellie lets it happen, not because she really wants to but because she doesn’t want to annoy him into the sort of quiet that isn’t her choice at all.

She settles for humming under her breath, twisting around to look at all the trees. They’re so fucking cool. So tall she has to crane her neck all the way back to see where they touch the sky.

She wants to ask Joel about the Redwood Forest. She read about that in her natural history class. Those sequoia trees were fire-proof and rot-proof and just about anything-proof. And some of them were over a thousand years old! Survivor trees. Badass trees.

So she wants to ask Joel if he ever saw them. Halfway to hear what he thinks about it and halfway to make a joke about him being like one of those trees.

 _How so?_ he’d ask, begrudgingly, because somehow, he’d know what was coming.

 _Because you’re both so old_ , she’d reply. _Ba-dum-tss._

She smiles but winds up keeping quiet. _Don’t annoy him, Ellie._

He’s the one who speaks again. The sound of him talking, without her prompting, nearly makes her jump. “You know, I think people do actually eat scorpions. I remember seein’ them once.”

Ellie is quiet for a moment. Then she blinks at the back of his head and says, “Uh, people eating scorpions?”

“No. I saw scorpions for sale, I think. It was in this store I used to go to. Had a bunch of weird shit. Chocolate covered ants and grasshoppers. I’m pretty sure I saw scorpions, too. Or maybe the scorpions were in lollipops...”

Ellie narrows her eyes, even though he can’t see. “Okay. You’re totally fucking with me.”

“I am not,” he says, nearly sounding offended. “You can ask Tommy, if you don’t believe me. He went to that place, too.”

He says that like they’ll see Tommy again. The both of them. Like maybe, once they’re done with the Fireflies, they could go back to Jackson. She wonders if that’s actually what he means or if he was just saying that casually. Now isn’t the time to ask. She doesn’t even really wanna think about that being a possibility because it’ll just get her hopes up. Instead, she says, “What kind of store was this?”

“A beef jerky outlet.”

Ellie shifts on the back of Callus, hanging onto Joel’s backpack. “An outlet?”

“A store,” he says.

“That just sells jerky?”

“And bugs.”

“Oh, right. The bugs. How could I forget.” She blows out a breath. “Man, you guys were weird. Did you ever try the bugs?”

“Uh, no,” he says, like it’s obvious. “Tommy did, though.”

“Did he like them?”

“I can’t remember,” he replies. “I could probably rustle you up some grasshoppers tonight, though, if you’re curious.”

An image of Joel with a tiny lasso appears in her head. Him trying to rope grasshoppers. It’s fucking hilarious. “I think I’m good. Without the chocolate, it probably wouldn’t be the same.”

“All right,” he says and she can swear, she hears a smile in his voice. She hopes she can, anyway. “You just let me know if you change your mind.”

She really does smile, whether he’s smiling or not. “Okay, Joel.”

They keep moving through the forest. The light is starting to shift. Ellie knows it’s nearing evening time, but she has no clue how to pinpoint something more specific. She read it's possible to tell time with the slant of the sun, but that really confuses her because isn’t the sun in different places at different times of the year? So how do you know for sure?

She thinks about asking Joel this. It’s a more practical thing to ask. He’d probably appreciate that. But then the question might prompt him to touch his watch. To think about time in general. _Not a good idea_ , she decides.

He’s the one who asks the next question, though.

“Would you rather eat a scab or eat a fingernail?”

Ellie is dumbfounded. Then, when she gets over the shock, she starts laughing. The sound echoes off the trees, filling up that quiet, and she should shut up but she can’t help it. And Joel doesn’t even tell her to quiet down. “Oh, man, that is so fucking gross.”

“I don’t think it’s any grosser than the shit question - or that snot question you asked earlier,” he says, and now, she _knows_ he’s smiling.

She fucking knows it.

She decides to go ahead and tell him about the sequoias.


End file.
